Life goes on with a new season of 'Downton Abbey'

Television • British hit is moving on  and so must the fans of this high-class soap opera.

Share This Article

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Matthew Crawley is dead. It's time to start getting over it, "Downton Abbey" fans. Although, clearly, some of you are having difficulty with that.

"There's Matthew denial," PBS president Paula Kerger told The Salt Lake Tribune. "There are people who think that he's really not gone. There was hope that it was sort of a 'Dallas' thing  it really was all a dream."

It wasn't. Matthew is dead. Dan Stevens, who played him, has left the show. For good.

"I am telling people to call [creator/writer/producer] Julian Fellowes if they have issues," Kerger said with a laugh.

Matthew's death at the end of Season 3 came as a shock to viewers and the other actors on the show. Particularly Michelle Dockery, who plays Lady Mary, Matthew's wife  now widow.

"My first reaction was 'Oh, crap. What is going to happen?' " Dockery said. "Because I thought  where can the story go now? We've spent all this time having this on-and-off, will-they-won't-they relationship, and then suddenly it was coming to an end."

Season 4 begins several months after the end of Season 3. It's 1922, the world continues to change and the Crawley family, along with the staff at Downton Abbey, is still dealing with the loss.

The show continues without missing a beat. The characters are having a harder time of it. After all, Matthew was the second Crawey to die in Season 3. Lady Sybil (Jessica Brown Findlay) died of complications from childbirth three episodes earlier.

To a lot of fans, that was as big a blow as Matthew's passing.

"I was heartbroken, because Sybil was the character I kind of most identified with," Kerger said.

She wasn't alone. PBS board chairman Geoffrey Sands "came to our board meeting the day after the Sybil episode aired and he said, 'I got a call from my wife, and our daughter was sobbing at school because of Sybil.' "

Before anyone gets upset with Fellowes, take note: Both actors wanted to leave the show.

"If actors don't want to come back and they're really definitive about that, you can make that happen," Kerger said.

Death is part of life at Downton Abbey. And life goes on.

"I think that, as much as it was sad to see Dan go, the same as it was to see Jessica go, it opens up opportunity for Julian to write a new chapter and something quite different," Dockery said.

There were fans who vowed they'd never watch the show again after Matthew's death. And â¦ nobody believes them.

"Downton Abbey" is a pop-culture phenomenon, the highest-rated drama in PBS history. It averaged 11.5 million viewers for Season 3; 12.3 million for the season finale.

Those numbers would have made it a success on any network, not just public TV. More Americans watched "Downton Abbey" than watched hit shows like "Grey's Anatomy," "The Good Wife," "How I Met Your Mother," "Revenge," "Scandal," "Glee" and dozens more.

And you can bet those millions will be back to see Mary start to recover from her loss. Don't be surprised when she finds a new love interest.

"She actually has more than one love interest," Dockery said. "And, yeah, she's kind of slowly, throughout the series, coming back to real life."

Maybe it's not Mary who should be concerned about her love life, however. Maybe it's the new men in her life who should be worried.

"They're kind of like praying mantises, aren't they?" joked producer Gareth Neame. "They come in and they get to do it once, and then she kills them or whatever female praying mantises do."

That's a bit of an exaggeration, but Mary does have frightfully bad luck with men. She was engaged to her cousin, Patrick, who went down with the Titanic. The first man she slept with  Turkish diplomat Kemal Pamuk (Theo James)  died in her bed, causing all sorts of complications.

And her happy marriage to Matthew lasted only a year or so before he was killed in that car-truck accident.

The one man who definitely won't be a love interest for Mary is her brother-in-law, Tom (Allen Leech), who was widowed when Sybil died.

"We are aware that there are suspicions about Tom and Mary's relationship, but they are very much friends," Dockery said. They share loss; they share running Downton Abbey. "So we do have a lot of scenes together. But, romantically, I don't think it's going anywhere. I hope not. It's very inappropriate."

There is lots of "inappropriate behavior" in Season 4 of "Downton Abbey." A sexual assault. A political scandal. An interracial romance. (Remember, it's 1922.) A highly inappropriate pregnancy.

Reader comments on sltrib.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Salt Lake Tribune. We will delete comments containing obscenities, personal attacks and inappropriate or offensive remarks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. If you see an objectionable comment, please alert us by clicking the arrow on the upper right side of the comment and selecting "Flag comment as inappropriate". If you've recently registered with Disqus or aren't seeing your comments immediately, you may need to verify your email address. To do so, visit disqus.com/account. See more about comments here.